Dell XPS 13 9315 Laptop: 13.4" FHD+, i5-1230U, 8GB DDR5, 512GB NVMe

That's interesting, because we bought about a dozen XPS-15s last year and a 1/4 of them had hard ware issues where they had to go back to Dell for MB replacements. We just got one back and it is having charging issues, so it might end up back with Dell.

how is XPS built? I know Inspiron is crap and I bought Vostro thinking it is business grade but 3 years in the DC charging port is now broken and I bought extended warranty. Apparently this is due to wear and tear that I barely brings out my laptop cause I have other laptops and my work laptop. Also, I had charging port issue for Dell previously in the past as well, seems like they are just junk.

It's quite possible that their build quality has slipped in step with many other manufacturers'. My info is from units purchased some years ago (the newest desktop is maybe 3 years old).

Yeah, I have been a big fan of the xps13. I have a 9343 8gb and a 9360 16gb (both swapped to larger SSD) and if the current trend continues of taking away the ports, when I need to upgrade shortly to something with 32gb ram, it won't be an xps13.

1) When you need to quickly hop onto a meeting and don't want to be the guy causing an echo, you want a headphone jack to just plug in. No waiting 5 to 10s for BT headphones to pair. And no recharging wireless headphones hallway through the work day.

2) I need a wireless mouse, prefer the Logitech ones with the universal receiver and they still don't make a low profile usb-C one that you can just keep plugged in. I think Lenovo makes one, but then I have to replace multiple mice I leave stashed at work and home and in the travel bag. And I don't want to plug in and out the dongle every time to travel, and the adapters can't stick out so far that they risk per damage. Tried Bluetooth mice but they suck, were jumpy, affected by high processor usage.

Plus you need one of the two USB-C ports for power input for most desk usage.

And buying a laptop where the SSD can't be removed and replaced is wrong for so many reasons.
1) Cheaper upgrades.
2) If the computer fails you can't remove the SSD to try and recover data in an external case.
3) Is the SSD fails you have to throw out the computer instead of just replacing the SSD.

Dell, in case you're reading this, we at least need 2 usb-C, one USB type-A, and a headphone jack. And real function keys. And non-soldered ram.

Wow, finally an XPS 13 deal pops up! Glad I didnt wait though and jumped on that Thinkpad X1 Nano (i7,16GB, 512GB) deal! Much better specs, much smaller and a 3 year warranty for $60 more. Im actually pretty surprised the XPS line even offers a machine specd with less than 16GB of RAM!

But you can swap out the battery? I have an Inspiron 7000 series I swapped out the battery twice..... twice because I used generic , the first time I didnt really need to , the second time because the generic one after about 2 years started to bubble so had to

That's interesting, because we bought about a dozen XPS-15s last year and a 1/4 of them had hard ware issues where they had to go back to Dell for MB replacements. We just got one back and it is having charging issues, so it might end up back with Dell.

I'm not defending Apple's upgrade costs but the RAM in an XPS and a MacBook are not directly comparable. The RAM in an Apple computer is part of a SoC: https://www.xda-developers.com/ap...ed-memory/

The RAM in one of these XPS laptops is soldered but it's more like traditional RAM. The difference will partially reflect the differences in upgrade pricing. The other part is upgrades are how Apple keeps hardware gross margins around 35%. The base model will have a significantly lower margin but Apple can make up for that by having higher margin upgrades (likely around 50% -- that means the $400 upgrade costs Apple [before taxes and other things factoring into net margins] about $200).

These XPS laptops are great computers. This is a solid price for one.

if you dont need windows then get the air. better battery life and way better resale value

SoC or chips -- it's all transistors. You can manufacture the memory on the SoC when you create it or you can manufacture individual memory chips and put it inside a container to be soldered to a board.

Personally, I don't think there is much of a difference. These SoC's are manufactured in such high volumes, it isn't rocket science and the upcharge ($400) is extreme.

Or get Ubuntu

if you dont need windows then get the air. better battery life and way better resale value

LOL UBUNTU? I'm taking a Linux class right now. And it's definitely not for your average user.

This or MacBook Air M1